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Tom McKane, the MoD's director general of resource and plans from 2002 to 2006, said Mr Straw and Mr Hoon's letter was sent amid concerns about the level and length of Britain's commitment to the conflict.

He told the inquiry: 'It became apparent during that period that it was expected that there would be a substantial force retained in place after the fighting had been concluded, for a period of some six months or so, which would have obliged the UK to maintain something like a divisional strength force throughout that period, drawn down to a lower force level thereafter.

'That in itself would have constituted a breach in the planning assumptions.'

Mr McKane said it was assumed at the time that the UK's military involvement in Iraq would last two to three years, with only around 1,000 troops deployed by the end of that period.

The UK's commitment to the Iraq campaign stood at 46,000 soldiers in March and April 2003 and fell to around 18,000 by the end of May, according to MoD figures.

Trevor Woolley, the MoD's financial director from 2003 to 2009, admitted the Armed Forces were stretched by simultaneous missions in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2006.

He said: 'We had two [operations] that were enduring, and therefore that placed demands on the force structure that were over and above those that we had planned the force structure to be able to handle.'

Nearly all British troops were withdrawn from Iraq by the middle of last year.

But Mr McKane said the military was still carrying out 'recuperation', the process by which it returns itself to the state of readiness before a deployment.

Mr Woolley said no calculation had been made of the long-term cost to the UK of the large numbers of troops who suffered physical or mental injury as a result of their service in Iraq.